Is the ability to open a thread at the last page or post necessary to make the mobile site as (or more) usable than the existing desktop site on mobile devices?

I've commented on this in the 'New Forum Updates - your opinions!' thread, and was told to set up a poll on it in this section. The mobile site has been improved a lot, but I think it will not be practical and easy to use until it has this feature.

Below is an abridged and re-written version of my earlier comments in the other thread.

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I am talking about needing an equivalent to the little icon here - which you click to view the latest post in a thread.

That functionality still seems to work fine on the desktop (and I think it is a necessary function) but not on the mobile site. So the only way you can get to the last page of a thread is to go through all the pages. I consider it to be a serious usability requirement in a forum that you be able to open a thread on the last page rather than go through numerous pages to get to it.

Currently, there is just a list of threads. You tap the thread title in the list, and it opens the thread on 'page 1 of 35' (as in the case of the thread I just opened on my iPod Touch).

There is a 'Next' button at the top right of the page which takes you to page 2 of the thread (and a 'Prev' button on the left on page 2 and above to go back a page), but no apparent button to take you directly to page 35. So you have to tap the 'Next' button 34 times to reach the most recent post after opening a thread! You'd have to have a great deal of patience to hold a conversation in a thread like that...

Ideally, I would like a button on the list of threads to go to the latest post (or latest page) of a thread.

And/or maybe a button next to the 'Next' button on the thread pages which took you to the last page.

Maybe it could be labeled 'Last' or 'Latest' or the last page number?

As I say, if either or both of those were added, I would use the mobile site in preference over the desktop site on my mobile devices from then on. Until then, 'pinch to zoom' is unfortunately much easier.

Just making it so that it opened threads at the most recent page rather than the first page would be an improvement!

I wonder if the reason why there haven't been more votes is because a lot of people might have given up on the mobile site, and are just using the desktop site on their mobile devices?

I mean, the mobile site was on there in beta for years without even the ability to post using the mobile version. So any regular posting user would have gone to the 'classic' version by necessity if they wanted to post, which would have been saved in their browser cookies, so they automatically went to the desktop site afterwards on a mobile site... And if they were prompted for 'mobile or classic' at any point, they would have habitually gone for 'classic' because they might still think they can't even post on the 'mobile optimized' version. I mean, I haven't tried the mobile version again since I posted this thread at the beginning of March! This issue really is a 'usability deal breaker' for me. It could have been fixed, for all I know. I'll have a look at it again today and report back. I doubt anything has changed though...

I think that if more people were actually still trying to use the mobile site then there would be more votes/posts on this issue. People may be thinking that since they don't use the mobile site, there's no point in voting or posting in a thread on the support forum about it.

Does anybody have any comments on that? Did you, for example, give up on the mobile site while it was in the non-postable beta version? Or are you using still using the 'classic' version of the site automatically on your mobile device?

Or do you think what I said just makes sense? Again, the more comments/votes the better. Thanks.

@Asteroid35 wrote:I mean, I haven't tried the mobile version again since I posted this thread at the beginning of March! This issue really is a 'usability deal breaker' for me. It could have been fixed, for all I know. I'll have a look at it again today and report back. I doubt anything has changed though...

Ah, forgot to have a look. I had a look today and it's still the same.

I would be very interested to know the numbers of people actually using the mobile version at this time...

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